Ageless
by GeneralIrritation
Summary: New York City. 2016. Evil still lurks in the hearts of men.


Connor Finch sat in the passenger seat of a black sedan, shiny under the streetlights as it made its way to a warehouse on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Jerry, an associate sent by their mutual employer, was driving. Connor was there to broker the deal and make sure nothing went wrong.

He'd been in the game since he was thirteen: robbing a little here, selling a little dope there. His mom had passed away when he was six. Connor's father (a life-long criminal himself, who passed away from leukemia the previous autumn) viewed young Connor's enterprise with no small amount of pride. All in all, Connor had spent half of his life behind bars, and his insistence on silence on the face of NYPD interrogation meant that he had bigger and better opportunities after every stretch.

From theft to dealing, from dealing to guns, and from guns to… _this._

Connor looked in the side mirror of the sedan and spied more and more gray creeping into his hair as the Manhattan streetlights punctured the dimness of the car's interior. Connor Finch was forty-one years old. The world had gotten darker since he was a boy. And a great deal harsher. The old rules didn't seem to apply anymore, and it took a peculiar breed to operate in a world without them. And while Connor reflected on the kind of man that made him, his introspection never lasted long.

Not when there was money to be made.

As Jerry pulled the sedan into a lot outside a warehouse by the waterfront, Connor checked his iPhone. 12:15 AM.

The two men walked to the dark warehouse on this sultry night in June, and Connor took time to appreciate how intimidating Jerry was. All six-foot-four of him. Vinny told Connor to take Jerry with him, both to drive and to look fierce. _"Never deal with Russians if you can't put the fear of God into them,"_ Vinny had said. _"If you don't, they'll think they can walk all over you."_

Connor and Jerry were met at the entrance of the warehouse by two of the Russians, and Connor was displeased to see that, in defiance of the stereotype, neither of them were wearing red tracksuits.

And it seemed that these Russians were of the same belief in both numbers and intimidation as Vinny was when he sent Jerry with him, as the bigger Russian had an inch on Jerry.

The smaller Russian spoke first. "You are Connor, yes?"

"I am," Connor said. "And who might you be?"

"I am Boris," the smaller one said. "This is Arkady."

"Well, Boris and Arkady," Connor said, "I'm Connor, and this is Jerry. I believe you have product for us."

* * *

After Boris and Arkady had confiscated Connor and Jerry's phones (standard practice amongst criminals doing deals that shouldn't be done in the vicinity of recording devices), they made their way inside the warehouse.

Four other Russians were standing between two massive metal storage containers near opposite walls. They were all carrying semi-automatic rifles.

"I gotta say, Boris," Connor said. "All that hardware your boys are carrying tells me you don't have faith in the level of warmth and caring in our relationship."

"What is it your Reagan said?" Boris asked. _"'Trust, but verify.'"_

Connor couldn't argue with that. If he was on the other side of the bargaining table, he most likely would have done the same thing.

"You look at product now?"

Connor ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah, Boris. I look at product now."

Boris spoke to one of his gun-toting henchmen in swift and brutal Russian, and the henchmen unlocked the door on one of the storage containers, for Connor to look inside.

There were thirteen people in that container. Men, women, children, all huddled to the sides, their hands and mouths bound in duct tape.

The Russians liked to bring them in from across the Canadian border, usually from Niagara. They were vacationing families trying to get the most bang for their buck by staying at dirt cheap motels whose owners the Russians had paid off. They were usually from Quebec, and it was at a premium that this particular product did not speak English. People who didn't speak English would be less disposed to scream for help in America.

 _"Human trafficking"_ had become the accepted term, and Connor liked that just fine. It had enough syllables to be completely clinical. Connor particularly liked the _"trafficking"_ part of the term. The people in these containers would go from the Russians to Vinny (for a nominal fee) and from Vinny to someone else (for a fee a great deal _more_ than nominal). It had taken Connor a while to get used to this new wrinkle in his life apart form the law, but get used to it he had. A couple of Tylenol PM, and he slept like a baby every night.

"You want to see other container?" Boris asked.

"No," Connor said. "I trust you. So much so that I don't even have to verify."

"We get money now?" Boris asked.

This raised Connor's eyebrows. "No," Connor said. "That wasn't part of the deal. We were sent here to look over the product to see that you were as good as your word. And now that Jerry and I have _seen_ that you're as good as your word, Jerry and I will tell Vinny, and Vinny will give you your money _tomorrow._ Not _tonight."_

Boris looked at Arkady, and then back at Connor, the stony placidity that passed for geniality curdling on his face all the while.

"We get money now," Boris said, not making it a question. "We get money tomorrow, we feed product. We feed product, price goes up. I think we get money now."

Connor reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, which caused the four as-yet-unnamed Russian hoods to level their guns at him. This wasn't the first time Connor Finch stared down the barrel of a gun, and he highly doubted that this would be the last. He smirked, and liberated the offending article from his jacket.

A tin Altoids case.

The Russians lowered their guns.

"Your father in the same line of work, Boris?" Connor asked. "He in his share of police line-ups?"

Boris nodded, his old-world steeliness kept firmly in place.

"Mine, too," Connor said. "My family's Irish. My dad? He was Irish, but he wasn't _Irish_ Irish, off the boat at Ellis. No, he was third generation, making me fourth. Now, they say the Irish are lucky, but flip through any history book and you'll see the relationship between the Irish and luck is a frosty one, what with the potato famine and the ass-kicking the English gave 'em. But Dad? He actually _was_ lucky. He was in the life for forty years and only did one stretch for armed robbery that got pled down to six months in minimum. Pops never saw the inside of Riker's, which is more than I can say for myself. The Italians didn't get my dad. The Russians didn't get my dad. Not even the _cops_ could get my dad. _Leukemia_ got my dad. This past fall. But before he died, he gave me something that he said would help me in my times of strife. I'd like to show it to you."

Connor gingerly opened the Altoids case. He looked inside and smiled before showing the contents to Boris.

It was empty.

"Look at that," Connor said. "It's the fuck I give for what you think."

Laughter.

Not from anyone in the assembled party, no. This laughter came from… someone else.

And it came from _everywhere._ From the ceiling above them. From the floor below. From the air between them. From the spaces between their ears. From the spaces between their _teeth._

Connor looked over at Jerry, and saw that this massive hoodlum, this guy that was so cold he beat Paulie Dwyer until one of his eyes popped out of its socket, had begun to sweat.

And as the owner of the laughter spoke, he could see why.

 **"So much time has passed, and yet so little has changed,"** the disembodied voice said. It was low, sonorous, raspy. **"The weed of crime still bears bitter fruit."**

The eyes of the massive Russian Arkady went wide, and Connor saw (or could have _sworn_ he saw) the imprints of a pair of invisible hands make indentations on his cheeks. As though Claude Rains had come back from the dead to take Arkady's face in his hands like a loving aunt.

Only these invisible hands wrenched Arkady's face clear to one side. Connor could hear the vertebrae in the man's neck crack like cheap fireworks. Arkady's lifeless body fell to the concrete floor.

The Russians emitted a cacophony in their native tongue, all of them pointing their guns at Connor and Jerry, the two interlopers, but none of them fired. Even they knew that they couldn't have broken Arkady's neck from the other side of the room.

A rough smacking sound, and one of the Russians was sent flying into the side of one of the shipping containers, as though he'd had his lights punched out by literal _nothing._

 **"Evil… will be punished."**

Jerry's right leg bent at the knee. The sound of the shattering bone sounded like a quickly felled redwood tree. Jerry howled in pain.

 **"Justice… will be served."**

All Connor could hear was his pulse pounding in his ears. The Russians that were still standing pointed their guns all around them, and even Boris had pulled a nine out of his gray suit jacket.

 **"And** ** _you… You_** **will be** ** _first!"_**

Two gunshots rang out, killing the lights above them and plunging the warehouse into total darkness.

Connor's first instinct was the correct one: He hit the floor and put his hands over his head as the silence and darkness were perforated by gunshots and muzzle flashes. But above the screams, the bangs, the falling shell casings, was the _laughter._

The cold, cruel _laughter._

The exchange had only lasted seconds, but Connor felt like it had gone on for decades. Eventually the darkened warehouse settled into silence again. The only evidence against Connor having gone deaf was that he could still hear his heavy breathing and his jackhammering heart.

The giant doors to the warehouse slid open, letting in humid summer air and long shafts of moonlight. Connor looked up.

They were all dead. Jerry, Boris, all of the Russians. They were festooned with gunshot wounds, seeping blood onto the concrete. And blanketing the carnage was a shadow, and as Connor looked from the bodies to the open warehouse door, he could see that, strangely, nothing was _casting_ this shadow.

No…

No, that wasn't quite true…

It was like a mirage coalescing to form something concrete. The thing that was casting this shadow slowly revealed itself.

And Connor Finch's mind boiled in horror…

* * *

Leukemia took George Finch quickly. He was diagnosed in May of 2015, and his funeral was the following October.

Of all the memories associated with his father's illness, painful or otherwise, one that stuck with Connor the most was the conversation he'd had with his father in the waiting room of Mercy Hospital in Hoboken, before George's first round of chemotherapy.

"Do you think mom would have approved of the life I lead?" Connor asked.

George smiled. "You clearly do not remember your mother. She had a split personality, and the second one was the stick up her ass."

Connor smiled.

"She'd have given you talks from a very early age. _'Don't end up like your old man, even though I spend all his money. Go to Seminary. Be a teacher. Don't break your mother's heart.'"_

"Did Grandma give you talks like that?" Connor asked.

"She started out that way," George said. "But she quieted down, though, after I bought her a house."

"What about Grandpa?"

It was at this mention of his own father that George Finch's face fell.

"Dad… Dad was different."

Connor put his hand on his own cheek. "How?"

George sighed. "When I was very little, my dad would tell me to stay on the straight and narrow… or The Shadow would get me."

Connor's eyebrows knitted together. "What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"It was a spook story from the thirties," George said. "This guy in a black hat flitting around New York, putting the bad guys down. He said The Shadow had powers. Mind control, or something, but I never believed him. Guy asks me to believe in Santa Claus, and that didn't pan out, so now I'm supposed to believe in The Shadow?"

George sighed again, and rubbed his chin. "I came up in the world. In the _life._ And Dad gave me the usual about how I was wasting my time, disappointing God, but he got _cold_ about it. And yeah, I get that he was mad at me, but it felt like there was something else to it. It took me a few years, but I think I figured out why."

George looked at Connor and gave him a smile so sad that Connor wondered why such an expression was ever associated with happiness in the first place.

"I think he was angry that The Shadow never got me."

* * *

He stood in the open door of the warehouse impossibly tall, clad all in black, save for a red scarf that hid his face below a long and crooked nose. He wore a black fedora with a brim so wide that it came halfway out to his shoulders. He held two silver Colt 1911s, both barrels billowing smoke.

And those _eyes._ Those gray, violent _eyes…_

The Shadow sheathed his guns in the two holsters under his arms and walked toward Connor, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous warehouse. Connor didn't even bother getting to his feet. He tried to scoot away and find a wall into which he could melt.

The Shadow grabbed Connor by the lapel of his leather jacket and brought him to his feet. Connor gave running a thought, but the moment The Shadow's cold, gray eyes met his, he was powerless. The Shadow reached into his black waistcoat and pulled something out. It could have been another gun. And if it would get him away from this wraith, this demon, this _thing,_ then Connor wouldn't have minded.

But it wasn't a gun.

It was Connor's iPhone.

 **"You will free the people in these containers,"** The Shadow said. **"You will call the police. And you will tell them what happened here."**

Connor Finch had gone to prison four times, and each time he'd kept his mouth shut. But staring into The Shadow's eyes, seeing the pupils drown out the gray, becoming all black, Connor knew he would do as he was told.

Why _wouldn't_ he?

There was nothing in the world he would have wanted _more._

* * *

Officer Peter Davidov sat on the privileged side of a two-way mirror peering into an interrogation room at a suspect that was drooling on his own silk shirt and staring off into space. The report pegged him as Connor Elias Finch, age forty-one. A four time loser who failed up.

Connor Elias Finch had apparently been a player in Vincent Garibaldi's crew. They knew Garibaldi dealt in drugs and guns, even though the NYPD couldn't make anything stick, but the news that he trucked in human trafficking was new. And meaty. And something that Connor Elias Finch had stated he would be more than happy to turn state's evidence for.

That there were few who would cop to something as awful as trafficking people was one thing, and that few as high up as Connor Elias Finch would rat was another, but it was the _way_ that Finch confessed. He was so out of it that they didn't even bother cuffing him before putting him in the interrogation room until a doctor could come and see him.

Sergeant Dahlia Ramirez came in bearing a cup of coffee and a file. She sat down in the chair next to Davidov.

"He's cooperative," Ramirez said. "I'll give him that much."

"He gave up Garibaldi," Davidov said. "This… this is _big."_

"And on human trafficking, too. Our boy Vinny's going away for the rest of his life."

"We making Finch for all the dead Russians?" Davidov asked.

Ramirez shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm willing to bet that when ballistics comes back, we're gonna find that the bullets don't match any of the guns at the scene."

"You don't believe his story, do you?" Davidov asked. "A guy in a hat comes in, shoots everyone, but leaves him _alive?"_

"Look at the guy," Ramirez said. "He hasn't even asked for a deal. I'd bet he'd purr if we scratched behind his ears."

Davidov nodded. They both sat in silence.

"Human trafficking," Davidov said. "I mean I know New York's big, I know that evil shit happens here every day, but… It's another thing to _see_ it. I mean, who _does_ something like this?"

Ramirez looked up and closed her eyes, as though she was trying to remember something.

 _"Qui scit qui malum latet corda hominum?"_

Davidov looked impressed. "What is that?"

"Latin."

"You know _Latin?"_

"You attend enough Latin Masses, you pick up a few things, yeah."

"What's it mean?"

Ramirez leaned toward Davidov. _"'Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?'"_

There was a pounding on the two way mirror, and both Ramirez and Davidov jumped in surprise.

Connor had placed his hand on the mirror. He shouldn't have been able to see them, but he was staring right at them.

And they couldn't have been able to hear him whisper, but they heard him all the same.

 _"The Shadow knows…"_

* * *

 ** _THE END_**


End file.
